


D.C. al Coda

by callunavulgari



Series: God Complex [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, Episode Tag, Goodbye Sex, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 03:09:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7025050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harrison edges closer, until Barry is close enough to touch, and reaches out to take Barry’s jaw in hand. It’s tacky and cool against his palm, from sweat, tears, or both. He tilts Barry’s chin up in a testing sort of way, willing him to open his eyes. “Barry,” he says, gently. “Look at me.”</p><p>Barry’s breathing goes unsteady. His shoulders shake harder. But he opens his eyes. Harrison isn’t surprised to find them red and glassy, more tears welling to the surface as he stares at him. He swallows hard, throat working, and says, in a wounded voice, “Zoom killed him.”</p><p>Harrison sighs and brushes the tears from Barry’s cheeks. “I know.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	D.C. al Coda

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [D.C. al Coda 回到原點](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7317574) by [jls20011425](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jls20011425/pseuds/jls20011425)



> Third (and possibly final?) part of God Complex. I may write more whenever Season 3 comes out, if something prompts me to come back to this particular verse of mine. Considering that this wasn't supposed to have two parts much less three, it's definitely possible! But unless we see more of Earth 2 Wells in the third season I doubt it would be anything more than little epilogues. I don't know! We'll see how it goes.
> 
>  
> 
> _"D.C. al Coda is a musical direction used in sheet music. It literally means, "da Capo al Coda," or "from the head to the tail". It directs the musician to go back and repeat the music from the beginning, and to continue playing until one reaches the first coda symbol."_
> 
>  
> 
> Basically, spaceoperetta made a funny and in the end it was too appropriate to pass up. Thanks again for looking this over and helping me work things out! You're a star!

Harrison isn’t even there when it happens.

When Jesse had passed on Iris’s dinner invitation, he’d elected to stay in for the night. It would be awkward, he’d told himself. Henry didn’t like him. Harrison knew that. Jesse knew that. Joe knew that. Barry _definitely_ knew that.

But then again, his dislike of Harrison was perfectly logical. It’s only natural to feel that way about the person who blew up your son.

Harrison hadn’t blamed Henry for it. He’d blamed himself.

He’d watched Barry come apart, screaming, in front of him, and was left shellshocked in the aftermath. It just hadn’t seemed right. Barry couldn’t die. Barry was a hero. Maybe Harrison was getting soft. Or perhaps this team’s particularly brand of hopeless optimism was contagious, because for precious few seconds Harrison had honestly thought that Barry was infallible. As if there was some rule out there that decreed that heroes never die.

Hah.

But in a way, he’d been right. Barry had come back. The hero didn’t die.

Even now that Barry’s back, real and warm and cocky, Henry doesn’t pretend to like him. He doesn’t even know about them, not truly, and he already doesn’t like Harrison. There’s no reason that he should exacerbate things by showing up at the man’s coming home dinner. No, there are plenty of things to be done in the lab. And there’s always Big Belly Burger to keep Harrison company.

At a quarter to eight, just after Harrison’s licked the last of the burger grease from his fingers and halfheartedly picked up the soldering iron, Jesse calls him in a panic.

That’s how Harrison finds out.

Dinner: cancelled. Henry: taken. Barry: missing.

Panic ensues.

Harrison licks suddenly dry lips and sets the soldering iron to the side.

It’s been half an hour since Zoom took Henry, Jesse tells him. Since Barry followed them. And to a speedster, thirty minutes is a veritable lifetime.

No.

Whatever’s done is done. Either Henry is already dead or Zoom is. Harrison doesn’t let himself dwell on the possibility that maybe Zoom just took him - took them - because if that’s the case, there’s not a damn thing that any of them can do about it.

“Dad?”

Jesse’s breathing has gotten heavier. She’s frightened. Terrified. In the background, he can hear Joe’s voice, shouting out orders. To the police, maybe? But what could the police do that Barry couldn’t?

“I’m here, sweetheart,” Harrison tells her, making his voice go slow and gentle. He’s good at compartmentalizing. He can be strong for his daughter and still frightened for… whatever it is that he and Barry have between them.

In a quiet voice, Jesse asks, “What should I do?”

A movement in his peripherals catches Harrison’s eye and he turns, fingers twitching towards a weapon before he registers the figure standing in the doorway. Shoulders slumped, head ducked low, fists clenched tight. Backlit by the light from the break room, the figure is little more than a dark silhouette, but it can only be one person.

Harrison takes a quick breath in through his nose and lets it out as a sigh. At least that’s one thing that he doesn’t have to worry about. Barry is here. That means Barry is safe. Harrison doesn’t blink, keeping Barry in his sights. “Stay strong, sweetie. That’s what you should do. Stay at Joe’s. I’ll join you when I can.”

“But, Dad-”

In a low voice, he says, “Tell Joe that Barry is safe.”

She sucks in a startled breath. “You mean he’s there? You have him?”

Everything has gone silent on her end of the line. They’ve heard her.

Barry doesn’t even twitch.

“Don’t- Just stay there for now. All of you. I’ll call you when I can tell you more.”

He hangs up before giving her a chance to argue, rubbing the edge of the slender phone between his thumb and forefinger before pushing to his feet. His knees creak.

“Allen?” he calls, shuffling forward on unsteady legs.

As he gets closer, he’s able to make out more of Barry’s features. His cowl is gone, leaving his hair a sweaty, windblown mess and his face is bone-white, cheeks splotchy red and streaked with tears. His shoulders are shaking, eyes clenched together tightly, one clenched hand flung out to steady himself against the doorframe.

Harrison swallows around the lump in his throat. So he was right. Henry is dead.

Harrison edges closer, until Barry is close enough to touch, and reaches out to take Barry’s jaw in hand. It’s tacky and cool against his palm, from sweat, tears, or both. He tilts Barry’s chin up in a testing sort of way, willing him to open his eyes.

“Barry,” he says, gently. “Look at me.”

Barry’s breathing goes unsteady. His shoulders shake harder. But he opens his eyes.

Harrison isn’t surprised to find them red and glassy, more tears welling to the surface as he stares at him. He swallows hard, throat working, and says, in a wounded voice, “Zoom killed him.”

Harrison sighs and brushes the tears from Barry’s cheeks. “I know.”

“Zoom killed my dad.”

“I know.”

“He…” And here, his breath hitches, a sob emerging before he can hide it. “He killed him where Thawne killed my mom.”

Harrison hisses, stepping forward immediately, until there’s no space left between them. His arms go around him, one around the waist, the other flung over a shoulder. For a moment, he buries his nose in Barry’s hair and just breathes.

Harrison is a father. He was a husband. His body remembers how to hug.

He holds Barry tightly, sliding one hand up the nape of Barry’s neck and into his hair.

“I’m sorry,” Harrison whispers, his own voice going tight and uneven. “I’m so sorry.”

“He- he killed him, Wells,” Barry gasps against Harrison’s neck. “He killed my dad.”

And then he begins to cry in earnest, huge choking sobs that shake his entire body, the tension going out of him all at once. He all but collapses into Harrison’s arms, limbs twitching as Harrison takes over and lowers them both to the floor, until Barry is sprawled out across his body, face pressed up against Harrison’s throat.

All the while, Harrison murmurs quietly to him. Soothing, nonsense words that he doesn’t even fully register. He knows them, remembers them vaguely from when Jesse skinned her knee or from when she came in second place at the science fair. They’re words that every father knows, a fictional language all of their own.

“Shh,” he murmurs into Barry’s sweat-soaked hair. “It’ll be alright. Everything will be okay.”

Barry shakes his head wordlessly, frantically, gasping and red-faced.

“Please,” he whispers.

Harrison doesn’t know - can’t know - what Barry is asking for, so he tightens his grip around him, hooking his ankle around one of Barry’s calves and maneuvering them into a more comfortable position.

“It’ll be okay,” Harrison says again, lips tucked against the curve of Barry’s ear. “We can - we’ll beat Zoom. It’ll be fine, Barry. He won’t hurt anyone else.”

Barry laughs, the sound choked and angry. “You can’t promise that.”

“No, I can’t,” Harrison says. “But you can.”

Barry lets out an agonized keening noise, stuffing his fist between his lips in an effort to muffle the sound. The skin of his knuckles split under his teeth. Gently, Harrison moves his hand away.

“Please,” Barry says, again.

Harrison licks his lips. “Please what, Allen?”

Barry shakes his head, pressing his forehead into Harrison’s chest. He isn’t gentle about it, grinding his brow against Harrison’s sternum until the pressure begins to hurt.

“Please, what?” he asks again, carding a hand through Barry’s hair.

The pressure abates as Barry pulls back to look at him, lashes wet and clumped together. For a moment, Harrison thinks that Barry isn’t going to say anything. That he’s going to go back to hiding his face away.

Instead, Barry leans in and kisses him gently on the mouth.

He tastes like salt. Harrison kisses him back.

“Please,” Barry murmurs feverishly against his lips, an arm looping around Harrison’s neck to pull him in closer. He gets a handful of Harrison’s hair and crawls the rest of the way into his lap, long legs wrapping around his waist, ankles tucking together at the small of his back.

“Please,” he says again, deepening the kiss. There’s an edge of desperation to his voice, something urgent in the way that he gropes between them with his free hand until he gets a hold of Harrison’s belt. He yanks.

“Barry,” Harrison tries to say, hissing under his breath when Barry works a hand into his pants. His hips jerk when Barry gets a hand around him, pumping once, twice. “Barry, stop.”

“Please,” Barry sobs, rocking against him. “Please, please, please.”

Harrison pulls back sharply, hands darting down to still Barry’s hips.

“Barry,” he says. “Stop.”

Barry stops, breathing hard. His face is still red and blotchy, the color high on his cheeks. Dried tears make his face sticky to the touch. God, Harrison thinks, he isn’t even hard.

“Look,” Harrison tells him. “We are going to go and clean you up. And then you’re going to sleep. _Sleep_. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Barry nods slowly, his eyes darting to Harrison and then away again. There and back, there and back.

Gently, Harrison touches the small of Barry’s back. “I’ll be with you the whole time, okay?”

Barry licks his lips. “Are you going to call Joe?”

Harrison nods. “While you’re in the shower.” He pauses. “Do you want me to have him come here?”

Barry shakes his head. “Not right now. Tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Harrison says, smiling faintly. He squeezes Barry’s hand. “Tomorrow.”

.

It takes three days to organize Henry’s funeral. It takes another two to put it in motion. Afterwards, after Zoom tells Barry what he wants, Barry shows up at his door again. Jesse lets herself out wordlessly, her knowing eyes skirting past him. Harrison waits until she’s gone before huffing a sigh, and holding his arms out to Barry.

“He said that we were the same now,” Barry confesses to him later that night, his voice loud in the quiet of the room. His hands are fisted tight in the sheets. “And he was right. I’m just, I’m so angry.”

“Hush,” Harrison says, stroking a hand down his arm. His mind marches onward. He has to talk to the others about this. Barry cannot, he _cannot_ fight Zoom like this.

Barry rolls over to face him, his eyes narrowing. “Thought the whole point of this _arrangement_ was for you to take my anger. My _hate_. Why not take it now, Wells?”

He spits the words out like they’re poison. Like acid. They’re heavy, sharp and unkind, acerbic. Barry gets a good grip on Harrison’s hips and jerks him in, rolls his hips against Harrison’s in a long, slow, drag. Pointed. Venomous. Cruel.

Harrison stares steadily at him until Barry looks away, a flush rising to his cheeks. In stilted, jerky moments, he turns his back on him.

“Later,” Harrison murmurs apologetically, stroking a hand down Barry’s side. He kisses the nape of Barry’s neck. “Not like this.”

In the morning, he calls Joe.

That afternoon, he shoots Barry in the back and helps Joe drag his body into a cell.

.

“I’ve just been thinking about it a lot lately,” Jesse tells him. “I just. I see the way you are with everyone here. Caitlin and Cisco. Iris and Joe.”

She pauses. “Barry. _Especially_ Barry.”

Harrison opens his mouth, but she speaks over him, that familiar look of determination written all over her features. He recognizes that look. It’s a look that he sees in the mirror, frequently. “Look, what you guys have isn’t my business. But I’m not blind, dad. You care about these people. A lot.”

She licks her lips, turning something over in her head for a minute before pressing onward. “But y’know, my friends? They’re all back home. On our earth. I guess what I’m trying to say is that when this is all over, I’m gonna go back home. To live my life. But if you need to stay here so that you can live yours again, I get that. I understand and it’s okay because-” He opens his mouth, but she interrupts him again, setting a hand on his arm. “Dad, seeing you _happy_? That is all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

She smiles at him. “Just think about it.”

.

Harrison finds Barry in the pipeline, sitting with his back to the cell that they’d locked him in, his knees drawn up to his chin. His eyes are listless, barely focusing on Harrison as he enters. That’s all they’ve been, it seems, since Henry. Just various states of empty. Dead. Hopeless.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Harrison isn’t surprised that he figured it out. Barry’s known how to read him for much longer than he’s comfortable admitting. He licks his lips, willing himself not to falter. Not now. “Yes.”

Barry doesn’t blink. “When?”

Again, Harrison swallows down the guilt. The want. The strange love that he has grown to feel towards Barry. This is not his to have. Not this boy. Not this world. Certainly not this Harrison Wells’ legacy. Harrison doesn’t belong here, no matter what Jesse says. He may care for these people, but they are not his to have.

Barry is not his to have.

“Tomorrow,” he answers, with steely determination. The word tastes sour in his mouth. He wants to give an addendum; an ‘I’ll come back’ or a ‘But it won’t be forever.’ But the truth is, he doesn’t know. He can’t use portals the way that Zoom did, and can’t rely on Ramon to know when he’s feeling lonely. It’s better to not think about it at all.

Barry laughs, long and slow and bitter, head tipping backwards until it thumps against the glass. He regards Harrison through narrowed eyes, lips curled into a hateful sneer. “Did you come for one last fuck then? Is that it? Come to give me what I need?”

Anger flares white-hot in his chest, exploding just under his sternum and spreading throughout his body - through his gut, shoulders, wrists, through sinew and bone - until he can feel it everywhere.

Harrison grits his teeth. Reins it in.

“We both knew that this was coming, Allen,” he says, quietly; regretful rather than cruel.

Barry stares at him, all that rage freezing over right before Harrison’s eyes. He shrugs resentfully, the entire motion one sharp jerk. It looks like it hurts. “Guess we did,” he says, cooly.

Harrison licks his lips, guilt surging again. “I-”

Barry pushes to the balls of his feet and in the space of a second, before Harrison can even register more than that telltale flicker of lightning, he’s right there, shoving Harrison back against the paneling, one arm barred across his throat.

He breathes heavily against Harrison’s open mouth, plainly struggling to get his anger in check. When Harrison swallows, he finds that Barry’s arm is restricting his air flow. The next breath he takes is slower, steadier - with a faint rasp.

“Don’t,” Barry says at last, sounding tired. “Just don’t. Don’t make excuses. Not when you’re going to leave anyway.”

“What would you have me do instead?” Harrison asks, voice strained.

Barry looks at him steadily, eyes dipping down to Harrison’s lips then back up again. He parts his own lips, wetting them with his tongue. If this were any other day, Harrison would laugh at him. Say, ‘Oh, is that all?’

Today is not any other day.

“Just,” Barry stops. Swallows. “Pretend? One last time?”

Harrison looks at him. At the swell of his cheekbone and the squarish jut of his jaw. The paleness of his eyes. The way the sweatshirt hangs off his frame, as if it had originally belonged to someone with broader shoulders.

Harrison wants to say that he isn’t pretending. Not anymore. That he hasn’t been in quite awhile.

But maybe that isn’t what Barry needs to hear. Not when Thawne said it first.

“Okay,” he says instead, and kisses him.

He lets Barry maneuver them, lets himself be turned around and guided backwards until his shoulders nudge up against glass instead of paneling and circuitry. This time he doesn’t say anything as Barry yanks on his belt, so sharply that Harrison gasps. He spreads his thighs and Barry steps into the space easily, their hips slotting together like puzzle pieces.

“Did you know that this cell, the one that you put me in, was the one that we put Thawne in over a year ago?” Barry asks casually as his hands tug Harrison’s shirt up and over his head. As if it doesn’t matter. Harrison fights to keep the horror off of his face. He fails. “When I first woke up, I thought I was imagining it. The smell of him that still lingered there. But I didn’t.”

Harrison swallows unsteadily and thinks about telling Barry to put his hands on his throat again.

Barry stops, licking his lips, and drops to his knees so he can guide Harrison’s shoes off of his feet. Harrison watches the top of his head as Barry works, fingers twitching as Barry eases him out of first the shoes, then the socks. It’s intimate. Uncomfortable.

When he finishes, Barry blinks up at him and, unthinking, Harrison’s palm seeks out the curve of Barry’s jaw. The skin that he finds there is gritty with the barest hint of stubble. Warm. Barry looks at him, eyes wide and wounded, and after a moment, nudges into the touch. Carefully, Harrison takes his thumb and strokes where neck meets jaw.

Barry swallows. “I don’t want you to go.”

“You didn’t want him to go either.”

It’s the first time that either of them have said the words out loud. And Harrison is willing to bet that it’s the first time that Barry’s really thought them. That despite everything Thawne had done to him, despite the fact that he should want to scatter his bones across the multiverse, Barry never once relished his loss. That in the end, he didn’t even want him to leave, much less die.

And here Harrison is. Leaving him.

“No,” Barry says. “I didn’t.”

Harrison sighs, bending down to press his lips to Barry’s temple. He drags them down the line of Barry’s jaw, until he reaches Barry’s lips, and kisses him deeply. His fingers thread into Barry’s hair and Barry makes a quiet, sad little noise, and wraps his arms around him.

His fingers shake as he undresses Barry. They linger; on Barry’s hands, his wrists, his hips.

When they’re both undressed, he steps back, until the cold glass is flush against his back. With a carefully constructed smirk, he reaches between his legs and fists his own cock, one thigh cocked to the side in invitation. He raises an eyebrow.

 _I don’t want to go either_ , Harrison thinks, as Barry pushes inside of him, minutes or maybe even hours later. His body tightens. His breath hitches. He breathes, in and out, nose pressed to Barry’s shoulder as Barry eases his way inside, breathing heavy in his ear.

His thighs are slick with lube. Brow wet with sweat. One hand on Barry’s hip, the other pressed tight across his eyes as he quietly comes apart - as their bodies shift away from the wall of the cell and down to the floor. His shoulders warming the cold floor as Barry thrusts between his thighs.

It’s _more_ , almost too much. Head thrown back, Barry’s lips on his throat - just Barry, everywhere - in him, in his _head_ , all the time. Harrison’s breath catches on something like a sob, and he grits his teeth, stuffs his knuckles in his mouth just to make himself _quiet_.

But Barry, sweet Barry, clever Barry, so much more than what that monster made of him, reaches over and gently extricates the fist from his mouth. Soothes the red indents with a touch. Says, “I like to hear you.”

This isn’t an experiment. And maybe it never really was. When Harrison saw something that he wanted, he took it. And he’d wanted Barry. He’d seen Barry’s lust, his want, all those broken things that Thawne had left him with, and he’d used it.

Harrison loves him. And it’s not good for either of them. Maybe one day. When they’re better for each other.

Barry puts his hand on Harrison’s throat.

His back arches off of the floor when he comes with a low, helpless cry. He keeps working himself back against Barry through it, chasing the aftershocks, the thrill of it, hips moving with a relentless, steady drive.

And when Barry follows him over, they slump together.

It’s a long time before they move again.

.

Harrison says his goodbyes. Before, when he’d pictured leaving this earth, there had been little fanfare. After all, these people didn’t truly matter, did they? They were a means to an end. They were there to help him stop Zoom and get his daughter back.

Now, Harrison feels. He cares. And Jesse was right about one thing. He is happier here, surrounded by these people that he’s reluctantly been forced to admit are something akin to family. He’s more human with them, on this earth. More of a hero.

When it comes time for Barry, he pauses. Hesitates, because what is there to say to Barry that he didn’t already convey last night? I’m sorry? I’ll miss you? _I love you_? Certainly all true. But, he thinks, maybe some things are better left unsaid.

In the end, he pulls Barry to him. Catches his warmth and holds him there as if he might shatter into a million pieces. As if he’ll come apart again, peel away before him like he’d done in the accelerator. He squeezes, heart pounding in his chest, and whispers in Barry’s ear, “I’m a better man than I was when I got here.”

He pulls back, holds Barry at arms length. His eyes are burning. “That’s ‘cause of you.”

Barry’s throat works, and he tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He shrugs. “I’m not the same either.”

Harrison should move on now. Needs to move on, before he can talk himself out of this. He’ll go on, say his goodbye to Cisco, and then he’ll step through a portal and back into his own world. He’ll be with his daughter. His colleagues. And the only Barry Allen in the whole wide world will be a quirky forensic scientist happily married to his beautiful wife.

Instead of doing any of that, he leans in and kisses Barry, slow and sweet. He keeps it chaste, barely more than a brush of lips against lips. His hand curls against the nape of Barry’s neck, and with a sigh, Barry leans into him.

When he pulls back this time, the entire room is quiet and watchful. It should make him feel hunted. It doesn’t.

He stays close and allows himself this, just this one thing.

“If you ever need me, I’m only a universe away,” he whispers. “Don’t be a stranger, Barry Allen.”

Barry chuckles and sniffs loudly, swiping a thumb over his eyes. “Somehow I don’t think that Cisco would appreciate being used as our own portable cell phone.”

Cisco chuckles nervously, holding out his arms and shaking his head. “Nope. No way. Metahuman Tinder was bad enough. No way, no how am I signing up to be some kind of interdimensional Skype.”

The corners of Harrison’s lips twitch.

“Well?” he coaxes.

“Yeah, sure,” Barry concedes, ducking his head and rubbing the back of his neck. He smiles and avoids Harrison’s eyes. Says, “I’ll call. Definitely.”

.

The porch steps are wet. Barry shuffles his cell phone between both hands, and thinks of a call that he’ll never make. A person that he’ll never see again. Not if Harrison is lucky anyway.

There’s a room full of people inside - happy people, happy _friends_ \- and Barry’s sitting out here alone. His chest aches as if it was his heart Zoom punched a hole through. Reality has wrapped itself tight around him and it’s squeezing so hard that he feels as if he can’t breathe. He’s choking on it, his head a constant state of grey. Nothing. No panic, no fear, no joy. Just. Nothing. He doesn’t feel like him anymore.

He hasn’t felt like Barry Allen in a while.

Everyone that Barry Allen loves leaves in the end, so better for him to not _be_ Barry Allen, right?

He’ll lose them all, eventually. One way or another.

They all leave.

His dad. His mom. Eddie. Harrison. Eobard _fucking_ Thawne.

But that’s where all this started, didn’t it?

Everything started with Eobard. His family’s slow destruction. His mom’s death. His dad’s imprisonment.

Barry presses a hand over his heart, sneering down at his chest. That too. Eobard Thawne broke him and his traitorous heart, rewired everything in his head and left him this... mess of a person. Who really knows the sort of person he would be if Eobard hadn’t controlled his life for so long? If Eobard hadn’t made him who he was?

Maybe he’d never be the Flash. Never have met Cisco or Caitlin. He certainly never would have gone to live with Joe. Would he have grown apart from Iris, if he never went to live with them? Or would she still be his friend?

But he’d have his family again. His mom, alive. His dad, alive. At home, with him. Together. A childhood dream come true.

Barry sets the phone on the concrete beside him and pushes to his feet.

What would the world be like, without the Flash?

Barry closes his eyes. Opens them.

Doesn’t matter. Anything’s better than here.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to no one, and steps through time.


End file.
